Of Missions and Missing
by Maddeline Kirkland-Bonnefoy
Summary: - It didn't matter that he had questions for her; it didn't matter that she showed up after nigh on ten years... All that mattered was that she was here, and that she was alive. - Rated for subject matter.


**Well, with the season finale coming up in just a _half hour_ here - I'm _soooo_ excited! - I thought I should hurry up and publish this little one-shot of mine. I wrote it after last week's episode, but since I've been sick this week - I still am, but not nearly as violently as I had been - I'm just posting it today. I'm rather happy with hos it turned out, seeing as I was just beginning to feel really sick when I wrote it, so I hope you all like it as well! Warnings are mostly the usual for _the Borgias_, so I don't think I need to spell them out... As noted in my recently fixed one-shot, Of Offered Mercy and Buried Memory, Sam's name has been changed to Alessandra for one-shots which take place in Renaissance Italy (mostly for the ones she is also in or is mentioned in).  
**

**Dislcaimer: _The Borgias_ belongs to Showtime and history itself, as doe Micheletto, though I wish I owned him at times. Sam is my OC, so please don't use her without my permission.**

**And finally, Sammy has an actual role... You can all kill me after you read and review this, alright? I know there are those that really don't like her existence in my head...**

* * *

With the way things were going with Juan, Cesare had asked Micheletto to keep an eye on him. Originally, the assassin had taken it as simply another task from his master, but… Everything had changed, when he had heard the gasped words of the woman Juan held pressed against the stone wall of the courtyard of the Lady Vanozza's villa. No – not the _words_; the voice. Though it had been nigh on ten years, he would have recognized that sound – that low, breathy contralto – anywhere. And suddenly, this was no-longer a simple task meted out to him by his master. No, now it was _personal_.

"C'mon! Say it again! _Ten more sons_!" Juan was furious, and more than a little in need of more opium.

"Ten – ten more sons…" The woman could barely choke out the words, what with the hands tight about her throat.

"And again!"

"T – Ten – more – "

"_Say it_!"

Less than a second later, a hand had settled in a vice grip on Juan's wrists. Micheletto glared more forcefully than normally would have been warranted; while it irked him that an innocent woman was being treated thus, when he thought of _who_ this woman was, and what Juan was doing to her… his blood boiled. The woman in question's mouth opened in shock, her eyes closing slightly, as she looked at the man who had just saved her from both further pain of asphyxiation, and of further rape. Neither male paid her any mind; they were too focused upon their rage, and each other, for the moment.

"Do you think this wise, _my lord_?" The assassin all but spat the words, feeling a _very_ familiar gaze upon him, but ignoring it for now. Managing to reign in his own fury somewhat, he continued. "Where would you put the body?"

"Take your hand off me, or you're a dead man!" Juan snarled, not in his right mind enough to see the logic in the words.

"You press in the wrong spot, my lord; you press here, and she's dead in a moment." He both told and showed Juan simply because he knew the other man was too much of a coward to actually commit the deed.

A moment passed, tense, then Juan wrested himself from Micheletto's grip, and removed his own from the girl's neck. "You will suffer for this," he spat the words in the redhead assassin's direction. Then he was gone.

For a moment, Micheletto was torn between the gasping girl beside him – he could tell this was mostly for show; she was stronger than that, he knew – and the mission from his master. If he were to carry it out, he needed to move, now. He settled on a compromise. "We will speak later," was all he said to the girl, her pale green gaze still burning holes into him, as he followed Juan. Assassin though he was, he was also a man of his word; once this task was finished, he would speak with her.

* * *

Later, after he had trailed after his target (he would no-longer think of the man by name), after he had made sure his target was where he should be, and after he had killed the only possible witness, he was both witness and accomplice to his master's killing his brother.

"I stand in awe, Your Eminence." He helped Cesare heave his target's body over the side of the bridge and into the Tiber.

"You killed your father." Cesare spoke the words as if they put them on equal footing. They did not.

"Still, I stand in awe." He had killed his father for reasons Cesare could never comprehend. Cesare had killed his brother for reasons which Micheletto would never have thought to kill anyone.

The fact that he had wished to run Juan Borgia through for what he had done this night notwithstanding, of course.

* * *

Still later, he visited the woman the now late Gonfalonier of the Papal Armies had seen fit to rape and then attempt to murder. On the surface, he was merely making sure she wouldn't talk; in truth, he had a different motive. After what had happened – it seemed the Lady Vanozza was more astute than Micheletto had been aware – the girl had been given a room for the night, and would be sent on her way in the morning. This was where he came now. Knocking respectfully, he waited for a moment before entering the room; she would have told him, had she been in a state of indecency… Or perhaps she would not have, considering their shared past.

"Before you say anything," she spoke without turning from where she stood at the window, "let me be assured of one thing." She had changed from the dress she had worn for the dance performed for His Holiness, and now wore clothing that he was more used to seeing her in – a plain shirt and black, slightly patched breeches, as befitted any lower-class man of her age. Her breasts were bound now, he could tell, as he was also used to seeing them; all ornament was gone from her hair. "Tell me this – who are you?"

To anyone else, the question would have seemed odd, and would then have been taken at face value. Micheletto found neither the question odd, nor took it at face value; he knew her too well for either. "I am the one person who knows your deepest secrets, and yet still loves you in spite of them." A moment passed, and then she turned, the fire light casing an orange glow upon her person. It seemed she had grown a bit in height, thinned out in frame, and changed the color of her hair (he would need to as how she did that…) in the past ten years. And yet, those eyes – still set in a strong, thin face with a slightly square jaw – could never be denied.

They still shone pale green, even in the fire light. They still shone pale green, even though they had been cast as emerald by darkness and a wonder if she could get herself out, when she had been previously assaulted. A smile then curved her thin, pale pink lips upward at the corner, as she closed the gap between them. She reached out, and then seemed to hesitate, a war behind her eyes. He understood it, and so kept silent, allowing her to fight it her own way. Then, in a flurry of dark curls, she all but threw herself into his embrace, just as she had done almost eleven years ago now. She had cried then, but did not do so now; and yet, she still clung to him as if the world were about to shatter around her. In that moment, he realized it didn't matter how she had come to be there… just that she was –

It just mattered that she was alive, and not dead somewhere where none would care, as he had feared.

"I've missed you, so very much, Micheletto…" Her words were slightly muffled by his shoulder, but he heard them all the same.

For a moment, he knew not what to say. Stating that he loved her… that was merely fact. But, speaking of his emotions… That was not something he did easily. Yet, for her… for her, he might even have disobeyed the one other person he loved just as much. So… this time… this one time… he would tell the truth of his emotions. Only to her; only ever to her.

"And I have missed you, Alessandra… my dear little sister…"


End file.
